We drove slower than usual as we made our way down G-town Ave passing row after row of abandoned businesses whose front steps were now home to bums and derelicts. We made our way through rundown neighborhoods with houses that looked long condemned. I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat as eyes seethed in the shadows of windows and doorways, following us as we drove slowly past. I wanted to empty my nine into every dark corner we passed. I was supposed to be above these kinds of feelings, but nobody in this game really was. Anyone who didn’t see enemies at every turn wound up getting crept on and blasted into the arms of his maker. My cell phone rang and I almost wet myself.
“Yo, Snap, it’s me. You ready for this, dog? ’Cause I got some real unpleasant shit for us to handle. It ain’t dangerous or nothing. I’m just hopin’ you ain’t got no moral objections.”
“Why would I? Who we doin’?”
“This crack whore snatched some product from us and she’s goin’ around braggin’ about that shit. Dog, she’s dissin’ us all over the hood. We gotta blast this bitch ’fore she fucks up our whole rep. There’s just one thing though.” He pauses for dramatic effect.
“What?”
“Last I heard she was pregnant—about nine months.”
“You know damn well I don’t give a fuck about some knocked up ass crack ho. One less for the welfare lines.”
“Yeah, well I just gotta be sure. You know some brothas get all soft about doin’ women and kids and shit. I should have known you wouldn’t sweat it though. You just like me, mad, bad, and dangerous to know, a thug for life.” Scratch laughed and the sound made me want to toss the phone right out the window.
“I ain’t shit like you, Scratch. I’m just like, if a bitch is dumb enough to get her trick ass hooked on that shit then she’s probably already killed herself. So fuck should I trip on it for? If she don’t value her life, I damn sure don’t.” I hung up and stared straight ahead at Scratch’s tail lights.
I could talk all that cold-blooded shit, but it did bother me, more than I even knew. It was quarter to eight when we pulled up in front of the broken down crackhouse. I hopped out of the Impala and met Scratch on the porch.
“You ready for this, Snap?”
“You shouldn’t even have to ask.”
“Yeah, I shouldn’t.”
He looked me up and down like he was still trying to make up his mind about me. Then he pulled out his .45 and checked the clip.
“Nothin’ to it but to do it.”
We went inside.
— | — | —
Chapter 18
–Charles Baudelaire
««—»»
The steps creaked, splintering and cracking beneath the weight of our cautious steps and I wondered if they might give way entirely and send us tumbling down into the dark basement below. I could hear the junkies and crackheads scurrying around in the opaque blackness. The hoarse whispers and agitated breathing from below informed us that they were aware of our presence and had at least some clue of why we had come, making ambush a very real possibility.
A crackhouse had burned to the ground the previous night and everyone inside had been immolated. Those who had not died in the fire were gunned down as they tried to escape. Every piper around the way was now on alert for the arsonist. I was pretty sure I knew who it was. I just didn’t understand why. It made no sense to me why Scratch was killing his own customers.
The crackwhore we were after was somewhere down in the mildew and filth below and these steps were the only exit. She was trapped. I had no idea how many pipers and hypers were down there nodding and scratching among the rats and roaches, but I had a fifteen shot clip in the Berretta and anyone who tried to interfere with business was gonna catch a bad one.
My senses were screaming. I could smell the sweat, the foul breath, the burning cocaine, heroin, speed, the dried blood and urine, the jungle funk of recent sex and something altogether foreign yet unnervingly familiar. Scratch pressed up against me breathing excitedly. He could sense it too. We were nearing the kill. I still couldn’t figure out why Scratch wanted to come along on this one. Why he hadn’t just given me the location and the bitch’s description and sent me to do the dirty-work myself. Killing a crackwhore in a shooting gallery wasn’t a very glamorous assignment.
“You hear that, Snap?” Scratch whispered nervously. His white skin seemed to glow in the near pitch darkness making his head look like a glow-in-the-dark Halloween skull.
“I don’t hear shit. Now shut the fuck up.”
I was still trying to place that strange smell and wondering about a new scent…burning wax, as if someone had just blown out a candle.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Scratch turned on the big halogen flashlight he had brought with him and waved it around the room. There were over a dozen people huddled there in various corners of the room. They shied away from the light as if they truly were the lifeless ghouls they appeared to be. There was an amalgam of young, old, male, female, White, Black, Puerto Rican, and even Korean crowded together on the dusty floor. Addiction did not discriminate.
They were the living dead. Skin drawn tight to muscles atrophied to the point of near uselessness, animated only by their addiction. Bones showing through the thin layer of flesh, brittle from malnourishment to the point where each step drew pain, their souls suppurating with infected wounds that even the hardest narcotics could not remedy. They gathered around the dim flicker of lighters heating crackpipes and heroine spoons like settlers around a campfire fervently engrossed in their quotidian ritual of self-destruction. It looked like some modern day leper colony, a mirthless carnival of woe where society quarantined its diseased misfits.
We had intended to just smoke anyone we found down here, but there were too many. Spillage from the crackhouses Scratch had already raided. This many bodies would attract too much attention after the damage Scratch had done last night. One or two crackheads dead wasn’t going to make anyone’s priority list, but a massacre like this would start tongues wagging about conspiracies and bring the heat down hard.
I spotted the girl we were after way in the back clutching a bundle of rags to her face, trying to hide.
“Is that the bitch right there?”
Scratch aimed the big light at her and smiled even as he took an involuntary step backwards as if he were suddenly afraid.
“I want all ya’ll crackheads and hypes to raise up out of here unless you’re lookin’ for a quick end to your misery,” I yelled, pointing the gun for emphasis.
The walking dead started to scramble, shuffle, and drag their tired asses out into the street. The girl with the rags pressed to her face didn’t even bother to move. She knew that we were there for her and that she was as good as dead. Death would be no great divergence from her current condition.
“Here, take my baby,” she said to a man who was busy gathering up his works and trying to get out of the line of fire.
“Bitch, we ain’t gonna hurt that little bastard!” Scratch roared “Fool get your shit and get the fuck out!”
